The age old question is simple. How much is your time worth? The unsaid issue there is that we only have so much time in life, so we should try to maximize the value of our time. Maybe that’s why my Mac is loaded with half a dozen timers of various and sundry flavors.
Time, Timers, Alerts
With all the digital timers on my Mac, I still have a kitchen egg timer at my side. Maybe it’s the tactile feedback, the little clicking sound it makes, but whatever it is, it helps to spur action, adrenaline, and effort.
Among those digital timers I’ve tried is an interesting, somewhat expensive little timer called Minuteur. It’s a Mac egg timer and stop watch which, in a strangely constructed way, times and alerts.
After using iPhone timer apps with scroll wheels and point and click, it’s strange to see Minuteur’s method. To set a timer for 30 minutes, enter 3000. Three hours would be 300000.
Whoa. That’s messy.
Setting an alarm is equally odd. Hold down the Option key and type in the time as HHMM. Hour and minutes. To start the stopwatch, press Option and Enter. The Pause is easy. Press the Spacebar on the keyboard.
Compare that mess with the Big Ben Tea Timer.
Not bad for 99-cents vs. the $8 price tag on Minuteur. Plus, Big Ben Tea Timer displays the countdown in the Dock icon, and displays– here it comes– photos of London’s famous Big Ben clock.
I have both. I like the Dock timer, but Minuteur ends up winning for me because don’t have to type in anything–just drag and slide the “time ruler” to whatever you want. It’s great for times where precision is not so important… or if the timer’s getting close and you want to give yourself more time…. just slide it a little more….